Why not make prostitution legal?
Quite simply, the trafficking industry caters to the sex industry. As human traffickers experts have written in The Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice, the trafficking trade follows the simple theory of supply and demand: traffickers will meet markets of higher demand with fewer barriers of entry (i.e. legal restrictions) by flooding it with a greater supply. Already human trafficking makes up a sizable, difficult to regulate, and dangerous portion of the sex industry within the US: 8% of the Urban Justice Center’s respondents were trafficked into the country for sex work and reported being “threatened, beaten, raped and having their money withheld by their traffickers.” Between January 2007 and September 2008, sex trafficking made up 83% of all reported trafficking incidents according to a Justice Department press release. Let’s face it. Sex sells. You may know this, but so do traffickers. And they are banking on it.
